1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic commerce, more specifically in the area of price or cost comparison and optimization of multiple-item package orders. In one embodiment, the invention relates to information processing and business methods for searching, optimized calculation, organization and display of information relating to items such as books via the Internet, to facilitate comparison browsing and shopping.
2. Prior Art
At present, some public and private search engines on the Internet permit a user to search for the lowest price or cost for one individual item, such as a book. However, there is a need for users to search for the prices of multiple items in a single session and optimize all the prices for all such items considered as a package, so that comparisons by price or another variable can easily be made. For example, a college student may be asked to purchase 3 or 4 textbooks at once for an upcoming semester in college. The student probably will be on a limited budget. Therefore, the student will be interested in finding out how all of the books can be purchased at the lowest total price. So far, this has been difficult if not impossible on the Internet.
In view of this unfilled need, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for searching for the lowest price or cost information for multiple-item package orders on the Internet; calculating one or more optimized prices for the items both individually and grouped by online store; organizing and displaying such information in a format useful for easy price comparison and browsing; and providing a method for easily purchasing the optimized items.